20260804Comment_1.pdf

The following comment was submitted via PUCWeb:
Name: Kathy Boehmer
Submission Time: Aug 4 2026 2:38PM
Email: [e-mail]
Telephone: [phone]
Address: 2502 E. River Road
Priest River, ID 83856
Name of Utility Company: Ziply
Case ID: GNR-T-25-05
Comment: "Dear Idaho PUC,
We have been at the mercy of Ziply Fiber for about 4 or 5 years now...whenever Frontier
pushed us over to them.We were not given a choice of home phone carriers. Ziply has been
an abomination as a phone utility and has left us and our neighbors in the lurch regarding
phone service more times than I can count.
The phone lines go down and they don't get around to fixing them for upwards of 7 or 8 days
at a time.Worse yet, we are in a rural area with no cell towers so our cell phones do not
work out here and if there's an emergency, we can't call anyone when the landline goes
out. When we do get through Ziply to complain, mainly by driving into town where there is
cell coverage to call them, they just say"we'll try to fix it within the next 7 - 8 days". This
kind of response seems to fly in the face of various federal and state laws and
requirements for a public phone utility, especially one that is the only game in town for this
part of Idaho.
This just happened again in late June. The phone lines were out for several days and Ziply
never said a thing or warned folks. We only found out that the phone lines were on the blink
after running into neighbors in town and talking to them. This is dangerous as there is no
way to contact emergency services if there is an accident or other emergency. When we
call Ziply to report an outage or a problem theyjust provide useless platitudes and answer
that they will "try"to get around to fixing it in a 7-8 day window. Customer support is non-
existent.
When we had Frontier,we were paying about$70/month for phone service. Once they sold
us off to Ziply, Ziply raised the rates and seem to raise them every 6 - 9 months or so for no
reason, all while leaving us with the same poor service that we've always had. They just
raised our rates again and now we're right around $125/month for very poor service with a
substandard utility.
They are charging us for Fiber although they've told us that we'll never get fiber to our
homes because it would be "too expensive" to do so but they like to tout the fact that they
are providing fiber to their customers. I guess just not all customers. So we only get plain
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old phone service over a landline. No internet, no cell. And with the most recent outage,we
realized we could be in a lot of trouble if we don't do something else. I have tried finding
another carrier for a landline for our home but haven't had any luck so far for north Idaho.
Ziply has a captive audience here and they know it and don't care what kind of service they
give us. Do we have any recourse?"
Sincerely,
Kathy Boehmer
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